The Name
by Lady Shockbox
Summary: She did not have one. She would have named herself sooner rather than later, but she honestly could not find an important reason to do so. Ironically, she finally found one for herself when she discovered the body of her dead creator. Oneshot. Animated


I wrote this ficclet immediately after I saw the last episode of Transformers Animated, and my biggest disappointment with the series finale was that they never named Starscream's clone femme on screen. Yes I _know_ that they officially named her Slipstream, but the fact they kept her unnamed in the show irritated me. That, and her presence in the final episode was completely pointless and a waste of valuable time. I was far from happy about it, but it gave way for little drabble to come to life. I just started to aimlessly write it after the episode was finished and I had it complete by the end of the day. I had to go back and continuously edit it multiple times though, hence the reason why it took to long to post. Transformers Animated is not mine.

* * *

_Name_ - What somebody or something is called. A word, term, or phrase by which somebody or something is known and distinguished from other people or things.

_~Encarta Dictionary_

**i**

She was not sure what to think when she found his body.

The sun had long since set over the horizon of the primitive planet she found herself being forced to take refuge on. She never bothered to remember the name as it did very little to concern her, but she _did_ bother to remain within the Earthen city limits she had been strained to call home. This was not simply out of preference. It was because it was simply the safest city to remain within. Despite the Autobots running amok, the city was chaotic enough that she could easily avoid detection. She knew she was a brilliant strategist in her own right. Out of all her clone brethren, not _only_ was she female, but she represented the strategic side of her creator's personality. When it came to the choice she had regarding leaving the _planet_ however, her strategic personality did not help her in the slightest.

If she left, she knew there would be nowhere for her to go.

Leaving for the moon had originally sounded like an attractive idea, but she quickly dismissed it recalling that the _Nemesis_, despite its scrapped condition, still had all its security protocols intact. Worse off was the fact that all these security systems, ranging from magnetic generators to laser cannons that would unfold from the ceilings if an intruder drew too near, would only deactivate if their creator - the one who gave life to her and her cloned brothers - gave the computer system the access codes to override them. He never bothered to give his created assortment of clones the codes, which unfortunately included her. Part of her was still tempted to return the ship in hopes that she could deactivate the security systems without the use of the codes, but the idea was rendered rather absurd when she remembered what had happened when her cowardly counterpart had wandered too close. A cannon turret twice the size of three Seekers had revealed itself from behind a set of blast shields on the ship's battered hull before it proceeded to fire rapidly at him. Skywarp - as the egomaniac clone had named him, while also dubbing himself as Thundercracker - had turned tail screaming. He _did_ avoid getting struck down by the laser blasts, but she presumed this was only by luck. She was not willing to try it herself.

Somewhere behind her above the level of the crater she discovered, she heard sirens. The human population was still trying to regroup and search for survivors among the catastrophe that had taken place with Omega Supreme's Decepticon clones running the city amok. She knew that they and their population would recover undoubtedly, but she was not sure if _she_ would.

She stood with her fists clenched at her side while she stood towering over her creator's prone and grey form. She found it slightly comical that she had sworn seeing him earlier in the day when she had only mistaken a flying Autobot as the Seeker she had been created from, but now the irony was a little disturbing to her. She had been hiding under a bridge when the city had first been taken under siege - seemingly not the best place to be during an attack as explosive as the one the cloned Omega Supreme's were lashing out, but the bridge itself was far enough away from the action for her to quickly flee if the structure gave any indication it was going to collapse - and she had seen the light of the Allspark gathering at the height of a tall skyscraper whose company name evaded her memory. She had also seen a flying meh floating towards it, but she dismissed him as being that flying Autobot again. Optimus was it? Perhaps. She had not cared much for such a miniscule threat.

Then she saw him fall. Without warning, without preamble, he had seemed to pause in mid-air before plummeting to the ground.

After the battle had supposedly ended, right about the time that one of the clones had gotten itself caught in the shield bubble created by the Allspark before it detonated, she waited for the cover of the night before approaching the general area where she had seen the mech fall. There was a great deal of confusion and panic from the human populace in the city below her as she flew, but they never noticed her in their dread. The sound of crying and screaming of the planet's dominant species as they tried to seek medical attention and find their beloved ones among the rubble was deafening, and in turn it was nearly drowned out by the blaring wails of ambulances, fire trucks, and assorted emergency sirens. The chaos wore on even after the battle ended, and no one noticed her as her harrier jet alternate-mode passed overhead like a silent bird of prey.

When she touched down and transformed, the part of the city she found herself in was strangely eerie and quiet. The slurs were dark with a district wide power outage and she would have nearly tripped over the form of the Transformer she had seen fall earlier if she was not being so careful. Her foot bumped up against him and she quickly looked down to the dead robot realizing he was there. What met her optics disturbed her.

Starscream was sprawled out on his stomach and leaning a little to his left side. The once light maroon color of his wings was now a sickly gray that matched the rest of his prior colorations, except the shade lacked the life that had been in it while he was still alive. Being the tactician that she was, the femme Seeker quickly concluded that the Allspark fragment that had been embedded in his forehead had been removed. Part of her was glad that Starscream had gotten his just deserts, but that portion of her was very small. In fact, she was not happy at all. She willed to keep her distraught emotions beneath the surface by glaring down at the fallen warrior with her fists clenched on either side of her pinched waist, and she continued to stare accusingly at the corpse with contempt for a long while. Starscream was half lying in a fetal position and curled up, his body nicked with scratches and dents that he had acquired from his fall. It was strange seeing such a once powerful warrior lying in that particular position.

She had expected his face to be twisted horribly with anger and fear. In dying, she supposed that he would feel that way. His face did not wield that expression though.

His expression was eerily relaxed like his body and his face was haggard, almost as if he had been drained of all his will to live right before he died. It was an expression that made the dead Seeker look ages older before his time despite the fact his time was up either way. In life, she supposed that his face had never held that expression. Maybe he had _once_ at some point where even he did not even realize it, but the female Seeker clone honestly couldn't pin a scenario where that would have likely happened. Starscream was handsome, but he was piercingly handsome in a way that made his dead expression look entirely alien. Perhaps, she thought, it was brought on by the intensity of his life. Constantly backstabbing, constantly conniving, constantly treacherous… it occurred to her that Starscream unquestionably never had a moment to himself where he could out his spark at rest. In the end, it all came back to haunt him, and it completely tore away any of his will to live and keep a stern face in his passing.

She stared at the lifeless shell. Nameless and without a home, she stared at the dead body of her creator.

It was depressing.

Despite the fact that he was a bastard either way, he was still the one who created her. He gave her _life_. Now that he was gone, she had nowhere to go at all. It was not as if she wanted to go anywhere with the renegade Decepticon air commander, but the sense that she was once part of him to an extent left her feeling empty sparked. When he had died, he must have taken some of her with him.

And what was she let with? Absolutely _nothing_. Not even a name.

The egomaniac clone, Thundercracker, had made it his personal business with naming his clone brethren. Starscream seemed to have cared less about this, and Thundercracker's already swollen ego was inflated tenfold. He claimed that his genius was far more superior to theirs, so he deemed himself the only one worthy to give out names to his fellow siblings. He had named himself first, followed shortly after by Skywarp - for some reason, the blue Seeker had seemingly chosen the cowardly clone as being his favorite - and the other two Seekers who he deemed to be Sunstorm, the complementary one, and Ramjet, the liar.

He never bothered to name her though. Whether or not this was because he had just completely forgotten about her very existence, she honestly had not cared for it at the time. Now she was beginning to.

She wordlessly turned away and started to walk in the opposite direction. She would find Thundercracker and Skywarp somewhere out there wherever they were and, if she could, she would try to find Ramjet and Sunstorm as well. She had seen them captured by the Autobots, but that did not matter. While she was at it, she figured she would at least do herself a favor and save Blitzwing as well. He was irritating and borderline insane with his multiple personalities, but he was still a fellow flier who had known Starscream while they worked together under Megatron in the _Nemesis_ consequent to the Great War. Though Starscream was gone, she had every intention of picking up the pieces for him.

It was the least she could do. At the same time, she suddenly had the urge to name herself.

"Starscream," she said out loud to no one in particular. She paused, mulled the designation over, and then she repeated it again. Her voice echoed and no one answered back. Not even Starscream's corpse. It was not as if it could, regardless. She smiled sadly to herself. She did not want to think of it as such, but a very small part of her thought of it as a tribute. "I like the sound of that."

**Fin**


End file.
